Three days was the verdict.
Three days to live unless new lungs became available or he would die.
This was the stark message conveyed to Jackie Eppelstun and her three daughters from Grenfell in October, 2005 about her husband and their father.
Scott Eppelstun is a livestock contractor used to early morning starts and long days. A few aches and pains went with the job but, in mid-2004, he felt worse than ever before and could hardly drag himself out of bed.
“I was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome,” Mr Eppelstun said, “and I thought this was why I was feeling ordinary but then I felt as though I was getting the ‘flu.”
After Christmas that same year, the family went to Narooma for a holiday and while there, Mr Eppelstun felt so unwell he didn’t even want to be on the beach with the children.
He went to a doctor, had chest x-rays and was diagnosed with pneumonia resulting in admission to the Cowra hospital when they returned home. A few days later he was transferred to Orange when his entire system crashed.
“What I learned later was that the doctor in Moruya didn’t recognise the trademark ‘shattered glass’ appearance of the lungs indicating Acute Interstitial Pneumonitis so appropriate treatment wasn’t commenced immediately.”
“The doctors in Orange told Jackie that I was in a very dangerous condition and put me on life-support which included being put into an induced coma for a week,” Mr Eppelstun explained.
“I finally went home in April but I was too crook for a bronchoscopy and, not long after that, I was airlifted to St Vincents Hospital where a lung biopsy was done. I was on oxygen all the time and couldn’t really talk. It was early October when my system crashed yet again and back I went to St Vincents.”
“It was decided I’d be added to the donor lung waiting list and, once on this list, it can take up to nine months before a suitable replacement is available which wasn’t really encouraging. However, I was ‘worked-up’ which is the process of scans and assessments undertaken to evaluate the capacity of the recipient. Normally, this process takes weeks but, in my case, this was achieved in under a week and, on the morning of Friday 5th, we were told I had three days to live if there wasn’t a new set of lungs available for me.”
“Then, at 5.00pm that afternoon came the incredible news - lungs were available and I’d be going to surgery that night,” Mr Eppelstun recalled.
“The moment I woke from the anaesthetic I could breathe without an oxygen mask. My old lungs had become hardened and these new lungs were elastic and I could inhale and exhale and the difference was unbelievable.”
“Surgeon, Paul Jantz installed the new lungs and Allan Glanville has kept me alive since the operation. Allan is the Director of Thoracic Medicine and Medical Director of Lung Transplants and has a farm near Bathurst. We usually talk about sheep and wool but he is there 24 hours a day if I need him and his international expertise in immunosuppressant drugs means I have the best person in the world at my fingertips.”
I live with the knowledge that, if my body decides to reject the lungs, I can be dead within six hours
- Scott Eppelstun
It sometimes is assumed that once the transplantation has been completed life returns to normal; not so, explains Mr Eppelstun.
“Because my body has these new and foreign organs in it, the natural reaction is to reject them so, for the rest of my life, I have to take immunosuppressant drugs which means I don’t have an immune system leaving me open for all types of illnesses.”
“A while after the transplant I contracted anthrax and I was so sick I was ready to die. Then I had Respiratory Syncytial Virus which affect the lungs and that was another close call. The real danger for lung transplantees is aspirating food into the lungs; because there isn’t an immune system, septicaemia can set in so quickly and kill you. I’ve had a few bouts so far.”
“Taking steroids is a new normal and these play havoc with your mind and sleep patterns. To counteract the amphetamine-type effects you need sleeping pills and this sets up a vicious cycle which affects your personality. My family is so patient and I am very grateful to them for putting up with me.”
“From being told I had three days to live eleven and a half years ago, I am so grateful for this borrowed time. I’ve seen my daughters graduate from school and universities. I now have two daughters and grandsons living in Grenfell whom I see often and another grandchild on the way. My youngest daughter, Grace, is the retiring The Land Show Girl and my wife, Jackie, is by my side through up and down times.”
Mr Eppelstun related how he has met people from all walks of life as a result of being organ recipients. “Yes, the process of being so close to dying does change your perspectives on life and when I hear someone whingeing, I think to myself, get over it, that is so insignificant in the scheme of things.”
“Everyone I’ve met through this extraordinary experience has a totally new appreciation of life and conversations tend to be around issues which really matter, not just superficial and trifling things.”
Since becoming The Land RAS Show Girl, Grace has campaigned for the past 12 months raising awareness of donating organs so others may live.
“My personal experience is at the centre of why I do this. I was only 12 when Dad was first struck down with Acute Interstitial Pneumonitis and then had the life-saving transplant,” she explained. “There were many times I wondered if I would have my father as he was so sick.”
“Once when I visited him in hospital I was disappointed he wasn’t excited to see me; it was two years later I realised he just didn’t have the energy to breathe, much less anything else.”
“My aim is to initiate conversations within families so everyone is clear about someone’s wish to be a donor. As well, it is essential these wishes are registered with the national organ donor registry so at the time of death when a family is stricken with grief, the instructions can be smoothly carried out.”
The Eppelstun family is proud to be part of the Herd of Hope campaign culminating in the cattle drive across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in late May.
“If it hadn’t been for the woman donor of Dad’s lungs, he would now be dead. Instead, he is part of our family, the Grenfell community, the Australian Livestock Contractors and providing emotional support and inspiration to new recipients,” Grace said.
“Gratitude is an understatement and we want other people to know they, too, can share life.”